The Defense Contract Audit Agency has racked up its share of detractors over the years, being accused everything from slow processing of reports to leniency toward contractors who overbill the government.

But perhaps its most insistent critic is neither the Government Accountability Office nor a peacenik advocacy group, but one of its own auditors. George Duggan, a Northern California certified public accountant who has spent 25 years with DCAA, has been blasting his superiors since the 1990s, landing him more than once in the role of whistleblower in a Federal Claims Court and before the Merit Systems Protection Board.

Under Director Patrick Fitzgerald since 2009, DCAA has implemented a range of reforms, chief among them the importation of fresh management blood and a risk-based triage strategy for focusing on audits most likely to return money to the treasury. But Duggan insists the agency -- and its overseers in the Defense Department Inspector General’s Office -- could do better.